San Andreas hospital receives another $3M for upgrade
After making the single largest donation in Mark Twain Medical Center’s history last year, the Wings of Freedom Foundation is nearly doubling down with another $3 million for the San Andreas hospital.
The foundation donated $4.5 million in March to begin renovations and purchase new equipment for the hospital’s surgery department, which will also be what the additional money announced Monday will go toward.
“This largest-ever donation to the Mark Twain Medical Center Foundation is a pioneering investment of $7.5 million which will help meet the ever-changing needs of our community,” the hospital said in a news release.
Both donations were pledged by the Wings of Freedom Foundation in the memory of Betty M. Higgins, a long-term, quiet supporter in Calaveras County.
The planned upgrade to the surgery department, which will be renamed the Betty Higgins Surgical Center upon completion, will allow the hospital to offer more services in-house that patients currently have to travel elsewhere to find.
Mark Twain Medical Center is a 25-bed hospital with at least five family medical locations that provide inpatient acute care, outpatient services and emergency services. With more than 300 employees, it is also one of Calaveras County’s largest employers.
Dignity Health operates hospitals and care facilities in three states, including Mark Twain Medical Center, and is billed as the largest not-for-profit health care system in the nation.
Higgins was a published author of children’s books and a prolific oil painter who grew up in the Midwest during World War II before moving to Los Angeles at 17 to attend the Otis Art Institute, the hospital said in the news release announcing the additional donation Monday.
She contributed her talent for art to the war effort at the time by doing artwork for military drafting and met her husband, Sam, just after WWII ended. The couple established a ranch in Calaveras County more than 55 years ago.
Betty Higgins helped
send veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder on outdoor trips to help with their healing process and established many scholarships for children of fallen soldiers, in addition to other philanthropic efforts that included helping build a medical facility to produce high-tech prostheses.
“Her appreciation for those who gave so much for our country inspired the generous support of our veterans and their families,” the Mark Twain Medical Center news release said.
The Mark Twain Medical Center Foundation is the nonprofit fundraising arm of the hospital, which has 25 beds and at least five family medical locations that provide inpatient acute care, outpatient services and emergency services.